


remembered

by pianoblack



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, don't think about the timeline too hard, everything in the raven king happened, friendship of the unbreakable kind, just some kids doing rituals in the forest, no sarchengsey road trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27285304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pianoblack/pseuds/pianoblack
Summary: The gang is being haunted by something or someone. Obviously this calls for a good old fashioned spirit summoning.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the capstone piece to my trc adjacent halloween 2020 ficlets! happy halloween, yall (:

Only Gansey would be happy with early mornings and long hikes every day. His buzzing energy, his desire for more, now has a place to go that isn't rooted in the trauma of dying once or twice or however many times it had been. Things were fuzzy like that. Overall it's good for him, this new search he carved out for himself.

The coffee shop staff at the small place main street nestled in the foothills know his name because he comes by multiple times a day with the exact same order every time. Every day he walks in and smiles and when the barista nods to him he waits by the window until they call his name.

The Blue Ridge Mountains are gorgeous in the fall. Probably his favorite he's ever seen in the entire world, and Gansey has seen his fair share of the world. There's a sense of falling into a painting. He breathes in the sight through the slightly frosted windows, the gently falling leaves. It's a sight he never wants to forget. He closes his eyes and it remains just as clear.

He gets the sense that someone is watching him intently and he turns to the counter, slightly bewildered that they would have his order already. The barista looks up and smiles apologetically and Gansey nods after a beat. He looks around. There's no one else in the shop. It's too early for all of that. Yet, he can't shake the feeling that he is being watched. The barista calls his name and Gansey picks up his drink. On his way out, he feels the weight of curious eyes trained on his back. He catches the door behind him with his foot to hold it open for -

No one. There's no one there.

The feeling lingers for the rest of the day. He feels it again while sorting through some literature at the visitor center. This early in the morning the entire place is empty. Even the park worker is quietly nursing a cup of coffee in the stock room out of sight. 

The bell above the door rings and turns to see who came in. There's an expectant feeling of anxious excitement in his stomach. He's not sure what, or who really, he expected but there's a dropping sense of disappointment when he sees no one there. He fidgets with the packet of brochures in his hand and stares out the window. A leaf drifts lazily down his line of sight.

Gansey is suddenly overcome with yearning for his friends. He's only been away for a couple nights this time but there were times when he would be gone for longer than a week. Sometimes, if he lets his mind wander too far into the future, he can't help but coiling knot of dread. They're growing up and does that mean they'll grow apart?

He thinks of taking Blue here one day. They could spend an entire week among the trees. He thinks of Ronan. Of Cabeswater - no, now it's Lindenmere - and how Ronan could find a place like this precious. He thinks of Adam. Imagines the way the light would filter through the the dusty brown strands of his hair. He thinks of Henry. Unlikely Henry who would want nothing more than to know the magic of this place simply to make Gansey happy. He thinks of -

Wait. He thinks of....Another friend. That's all of them, isn't it? He counts them off in his head. Blue. Ronan. Adam. Henry. His mind rolls through everyone else he's known but none of them quite fit the odd hole. Emptiness begins to lace through everything and this, he knows, means that soon the loneliness will follow.

A shadows crosses the window and Gansey is certain it's a person. He goes out and there's no one around for miles.

* * *

The glass is the third one that week. Chainsaw had been perched on Ronan's shoulder the entire time and he's been watching Opal muck and holler with the cows just on the other side of the kitchen window. Any other time and he would have blamed it on his own carelessness. But three times in one week? There's something more brewing.

Ronan shuts off the sink and makes his way across the kitchen, just past the jutting counter bar, and over to the dining table. He had left the glass nowhere near the edge yet there it is. Shattered into many pieces on the floor exactly as he'd heard. Chainsaw squawks with suspicion.

This glass. The loose window pane in Matthew's room. The snow globe with the bikini clad gnome tucked on one of high shelves.

This had to mean something. Maybe he'd ask Adam about it. The Barns is many things, but haunted was never something Ronan considered before. Though, as he thinks about it now, there's enough energy in this place for it to have haunts many times over. He's definitely going to ask Adam about it.

Chainsaw remains ruffled on his shoulder while he sweeps up the glass. As he drops it into the garbage bin he hears something else topple onto the ground. At least this thing is too thick to break. He swears and checks the window. Outside, Opal found a way to piss off one of the cows and somehow ended up crying in a tree.

"Parrish?" he calls, even though Adam left hours ago and isn't due back hours later. The house is silent. "Matthew? Declan?"

He enters the sitting room and finds it empty. One of the random boxes of things is upended and the contents strewn across the floor. Adam had just finished tidying up this room this morning before he left. The box was on the shelf. And now it's on the ground. 

Ronan realizes as he's putting the things back that this box is one he brought back from Monmouth. Some of it is extra books and things Gansey had donated to him but most of it was from their sparsely furnished guest room. It seems ridiculous now that the even had a guest room but even more so that Ronan felt enough to want to keep the contents.

With the box all cleaned and shelved, Ronan settles on the couch and, though he isn't sure why, he waits.

* * *

Blue isn't scared. Not at first. It could have just been that Gansey had come early or maybe she forgot to turn off the fan. She rubs her hand through her hair, yawning as she sits up in bed.

"Gansey?"

No answer. She stretches and rubs the sleep from her eyes trying to remember what exactly had woken her up. It felt like someone running their fingers through her hair. It had all felt so real. The old floor boards creak beneath her feet. She clicks on the small lamp and checks the old analog clock Gansey insists on keeping. She rubs her eyes and looks at it closer. Barely two in the morning. Gansey probably won't be back until it gets light out. And judging from the thick blanket of fog roving outside that won't be for another few hours.

Something cold drifts over her shoulders and down her arms. This isn't the regular late October chill, this felt more pointed. Like the cold is trying to grab her. She pulls on one of Gansey's old row sweaters and checks the little space heater. It's another of Gansey's preferred antiques that's charming and attractive and a little too eager at what it does. Blue has never had a good relationship with the cold, but with this heater it feels more like summer no matter the time of year.

"Hello?" she calls. She doesn't think and she's not sure where the next words come from but she says them anyway, "You can take my energy. If you need to."

Something inside her stirs. It feels familiar yet just out of reach. Like longing for something she can't place. It's a feeling she thought she'd put to bed.

Outside the stars are stark in the dark blanket of the night sky, crisp and clear. A quintessential October. She stares out the window and watches her breath fog up the glass. Her lips suddenly feel very cold. Almost wet. She touches her fingers to them and she can't help but feel like she's been here before.

* * *

Another laugh echoes up the stairs and Adam nearly tears the page he's been reading for the last fifteen minutes in his fist. Ronan is usually better about this. Adam doesn't even know what Ronan finds so funny but he hasn't heard Ronan laugh like this - full and from his chest like he can't help himself. The page remains intact, though Adam isn't so sure his patience will hold up, and he sets a bookmark in the page pointing to the exact line he's reading. He peeks his head out of the door to Declan's old room turned study. 

The upstairs corridor is empty and the only light coming up from downstairs is the weak orange one just around the corner in the kitchen. It's silent.

"Whatever you're planning, can you keep it down?"

Ronan doesn't answer. He doesn't even make a noise. Strange, Adam will admit, but fine. There are more important things to focus on at the moment so he lets it go. Adam puts on the headphones Ronan had dreamt for him that plays whatever he wants to hear. Which is apparently ambient chillout hip hop beats. He hates to admit it but it does help him focus. He adjusts the volume, finds his spot in the book, then gets back to reading when -

He hears it again. The laughter just a little louder this time but now there are words. A conversation maybe? He can barely make out what they're saying. He turns the volume up but the laughter doesn't get any quieter. It tickles against his deaf ear. He closes his eyes and laugh is louder now, the words almost clear. He can catch snippets of a familiar voice he hasn't thought of in a long time. He can't place it.

Adam gets up to look for Ronan and expects Ronan to be wreaking havoc downstairs with Opal. Instead Adam finds Ronan culred up on the couch, arm tossed over his face, fast asleep. Chainsaw is loafed comfortably right on his chest. They look like they haven't moved for hours. Adam gently, tentatively walks up and smacks Ronan on the stomach.

"What?" Ronan asks blearily. "What the fuck, Parrish? Study time is nap time, you know that."

Adam thinks for a second about how to word what he's going to ask. Eventually he breathes out and just says it.

"I think the house is haunted."

* * *

"Haunted?" Gansey asks brightly. He smiles like someone just complimented him on his rather sharp decision to match his watch to his belt. The florescent lights above them dim in comparison to that smile. "Perhaps we should investigate. Maybe it has something to do with the spirit that's been visiting Jane and me the past couple weeks."

Adam frowns and looks to Blue. "Spirit?"

She pinches a piece of sausage and places it on Gansey's plate. "I'm not sure if it's a spirit but it's definitely something." She goes on to explain that something's been touching her hair and waking her in the middle of night. About how sometimes it feels like a pair of frozen hands had grabbed her. Or how Gansey can't shake a set of eyes following him wherever he goes.

"Shit's been breaking around the house for no reason," Ronan supplies. "Parrish has been hearing voices."

"In my deaf ear," Adam says, shaking his nearly empty soda cup next by way of demonstration.

Gansey slides his plate to to the side and makes a note in his journal. It's a new one he had started his past birthday. Only a few pages have been filled in, but the few that have are bursting at the seams with sketches and notes and memories already. On this fresh page he write across the top Hauntings?

This night is a comfortable, familiar routine. The four of them huddled in a booth at the back of Nino's. A couple pizzas and even more empty pitchers of ice tea on the table. The speaker system still hasn't been fixed so it's the sound of mellow chatter, the occasional break of laughter, and the rain gently splattering outside.

"Do the voices say anything?" Gansey dabs grease from his mouth with a perfectly folded napkin.

"No. No, not really." Adam has his head tilted like he might be trying to hear the voices now. "It sounds happy, though. Like someone having a lot of fun. Reckless fun. Ronan's brand of fun."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ronan plays affronted but he doesn't pull away when Adam squeezes his hand.

"Does this really count as a haunting when it seems like whatever just wants to...play?" Blue asks. Ronan's the only one to emphatically declare that if a spirit has taken an interest in them, it definitely must be a haunting. Gansey and Adam aren't as quick to say so. Blue just shrugs, "Maybe we should play with it."

"What, like a game night?" Ronan says. "Let's pull out the ouija board and play fucking Snakes and Ladders?"

"Shut up, Lynch."

"We would definitely play bridge," Gansey says in an attempt to stop any further escalation. It doesn't work.

"Count me out. If you want to invite spirits into your life then you can do that without me. No, thanks."

Blue calls Ronan something shocking enough that Ronan's only response is to nod approvingly. The conversation drifts slowly away from more serious talk of spirits, floating from topic to topic. Ronan and Blue start as many petty arguments as they finish. Adam and Gansey catch each other up on less stressful particulars. The pizza stays warm. The night carries on.

Later, when the shop is mostly closed, Adam nudges Ronan with his knee. Ronan looks at him and Adam looks back. There's a silent conversation going on in their eyebrows and head tilts that almost turns into an argument. Adam wins out it seems and Ronan heaves a sigh.

"I think Lindenmere is trying to tell us something."

"All of us?" Blue asks. Usually the forest just asks Ronan what it wants. Sometimes Adam. But Blue and Gansey have never been privy to its needs unless it was after the fact.

Adam nods encouragingly at Ronan and Ronan continues. "I've been having recurring dreams. Of Cabeswater."

Gansey audibly gasps. "Are you sure it's not Lindenmere?"

"No, it's definitely Cabeswater. The two of them are similar but. Different. This doesn't feel like Cabeswater when I used to dream it. It's like a dream of a dream. We keep coming back to the same place."

At the mention of we, Gansey and Blue look at Adam. "He's right. We were able to go deeper in than when Ronan is by himself. I think we can get close to the center with all of us."

The table is silent while the four of them consider this. Blue and Adam look at one another.

"You don't think," Blue says while she looks at Adam but she means it for everyone, "That it's asking now that it's nearly Halloween? The veil is getting thin." Ronan mutters something under his breath about fucking heathens and Blue kicks him under the table. "Do you think it's trying to warn us about something? Maybe something trying to get through?"

She doesn't say the demon but they all think it. Gansey shakes his head. "It's playful. The spirit that's been following me around. It doesn't seem like it wants to hurt us. I think it - I think he - wants to see us."

"He?" says Blue.

"That doesn't make it safe," says Adam.

Ronan is silent. Gansey shrugs. "What does Lindenmere say?"

"It just...wants our attention. It wants us to pay attention to something." It's easy to see Ronan is torn between wanting to please Lindenmere and staying as far away from spirits as possible. "I don't know if it's good or bad."

"We should visit Lindenmere soon. Let's say this weekend?"

"Gansey, we all know that's Halloween," Adam says.

"Then it's settled. We can see if we can find whatever, or whoever, Lindenmere would like us to find."

They murmur in various shades of agreement but eventually they realize that none of them actually know how to summon a spirit. Blue and Adam toss around ideas, though admittedly neither of them has done something quite like this. Summoning a spirit seems difficult enough, not to mention trying to find a specific one. None of them speak it, but they can all feel it. Something drawing them in, drawing them close.


	2. Chapter 2

It turns out to be a relatively easy ritual. Maura and Calla are more than happy to help. They lend Blue and Adam some herbs and materials and good words. They draw runes on their palms and pack them some snacks.

"I don't think it's going to want - " Blue rifles through the basket " - baked chicken strips and a thermos of invigorating tea."

"Everything's cold on the other side," Maura says as she tries to futilely gather Blue's hair into a ponytail. "All of you please be careful. If anything happens, you have your knife right?"

"It's a spirit, mom."

"And I give you permission to kill it twice. But only if you have to." She gives up on Blue's hair and instead pulls her in for a hug.

Blue and Adam, now laden with gifts for the spirit and rather nice collection of sticks, meet Ronan and Gansey outside. They all pile into The Pig and there's a sense of nostalgia that close enough they can reach out and grab it. Hold it in their hands like a creature. It's been so long since they were all together like this. So many adventures had started this exact same way. With Blue wrapping Gansey's jacket around her as she pulls her knees up and stares out the passenger window. Gansey mumbling praises and encouragements to The Pig and the triumphant sound of it starting.

They make their way to the their forest, laughing and talking like the old friends that they are.

The moon is high in the sky by the time they make it to the forest, a slight barely there crescent. Ronan leads the way because he knows Lindenmere better than the rest of them. He weaves a path along the edge, never going in very far. Every now and then he and Adam will pull their heads close to each other and whisper while pointing at trees and peering in one direction or another. It's hard to say exactly how long it takes but they eventually find it. A surprise because Ronan and Adam hadn't been sure it would still be there. Sure enough, they round a corner and the cherry red Mustang is still sitting in disrepair among the trees.

"I would've thought that disappeared with Cabeswater," Adam says. He wipes some dust from the passenger window and looks in. It's too dark.

"We're close," Ronan says. He turns on his heel and looks around, trying to orient himself to some unknown direction. Up above, Lindenmere whispers encouragements into Ronan's ear and he follows.

This is farther than Ronan and Adam have ever been. The branches of the trees are thick and gnarled up above, nearly blocking out all of the moonlight except for the odd silver slat. Gansey takes Blue's hand not for her benefit but for his. Ronan trusts Lindenmere to take them where they need to go.

Just ahead is a small clearing filled with mist and moonlight. None of them can explain it but it feels right. Ronan gestures to Blue and Adam, and they get to work setting up the ritual. The ground here is covered in soft, short strands of grass and the dirt beneath gives way easily. Blue draws a circle in the ground while Adam crushes a mixture of herbs to sprinkle over their heads. Together they set a bowl of water down in the center and the four of them sit just within it forming a broken circle of their own. Ronan moves to fill the extra space but Adam shakes his head.

"Leave it open. That spot it for the spirit."

"You want him to sit next to me? Fuck that. Trade with me Parrish."

Adam shakes his head again and puts a grounding hand on Ronan's shoulder. "I think it has to be you. You and Gansey."

Gansey takes it better than Ronan. He nods as he pats the empty space. "Don't be shy," he says to the forest, "We can't wait to meet you."

Ronan mouths something disparaging but Lindenmere sweeps it away under the sound of a breeze and birds chirping through the canopy. 

Adam sets his hands gently on his thighs, head tilted back, and stares up at the moon. For a moment, nothing happens. The forest stays still. Then it warps ever so slightly. It stretches in front of him and the moon ticks along the sky, slow and shy at first. Adam can feel something itching against his fingertips. Slithering through his fingers and around his hands. It's not really there. But it is. The moon sweeps across the sky and returns on the other side.

"Lynch, can you feel that?" Adam's eyes reflect the waxing crescent, growing with each swipe across the sky.

Ronan looks around at the forest but he doesn't feel it. He doesn't feel much of anything. But that's only because it isn't happening to him. He can see it happening to Lindenmere. To Adam. As the moon cycles above the sky, the forest shifts along with it. It's the seasons at first. Winter for a blink then just as quickly summer. Flashes of time too quick for Ronan to catch any details. There are shades among the trees. Blurred figures of creatures and -

He sees himself. The memory of himself not as he's lived it, but as Lindenmere has seen him. Adam is flipping through the different snapshots of Lindenmere at a certain time, but Ronan is filling them with what the forest remembers.

"Can you focus it?" He puts his hand over Adam's on his thigh. "I can barely see what's going on."

Adam's head falls back even further, an unnatural slightly terrifying tilt to his head, and his mouth would look slack if not for the tip of his tongue running against his bottom lip. Back and forth, back and forth. He blinks rapidly but eventually just closes his eyes. He laces his fingers with Ronan on one side and reaches for Blue on the other. The moment their fingers touch, Adam can feel everything shift all around him. The moon is no longer flying across the sky as it pleases. It answers to him. Lindenmere is clearer than anything. Like Adam's never seen reality before this moment. But it's not just Lindenmere. It's Cabeswater too. And another forest with another name from a time before them. And a time after them. Every life of this magical forest folded over on itself with Adam at the middle of it.

Magician.

Ronan tightens his grip because it's overwhelming. He can see them all. With Blue channeling Adam's energy, Ronan can clearly pick through Lindenmere's memories. Cabeswater's memories. The highs of laughter and camaraderie during their Glendower days. The more recent mellow moment of Adam and Ronan spending lazy days and nights in the open fields. High definition reflections of himself and Adam and Blue and Gansey and -

Darkness. A rot seeping in through the edges. A dark vapor rising from the forest floor, forming into something void and shapeless that follows them. It's not what Ronan remembers. It doesn't look like the demon but it takes the shape of something decayed and fraying. There's pain, too. A hurt that claws at his heart. He doesn't want to go back there again. He pulls away.

"No," Adam says softly. "He's in there. He's in there somewhere."

Something like guilt or shame mixed with anxious excitement flows through Ronan. He feels like he knows who he is but his mind can't quite place it. Adam finds the slivers of time where Lindenmere was at it's darkest. Ronan breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth. He presses into the memories. The pain lingers but it feels more personal. It's his fear he's feeling. His own shame and grief from losing Cabeswater. He doesn't exactly know who it is he's looking for but this doesn't feel right.

Ronan asks, "can you show me just Cabeswater?"

Adam doesn't respond but the forest around them morphs into something. The bend of the trees is ever so slightly different and the boughs turn just so. It's a subtle difference, but Ronan can count and catalog each one of them. He knows his forest and his forest knows him. This is Cabeswater.

The air fills with pain and it would be so easy for Ronan to get lost in all of this. The trees around him slouch toward him to embrace him, to comfort him, but it doesn't ease the pain. He watches things he doesn't remember in slow motion. This is Cabeswater. Cabeswater's memory of itself, of it's final moments. He hears a scream. Is it Adam? His mother? Is it him?

"Parrish," Ronan starts to say, "Adam, I - I don't know - "

A blood dimmed river snaking through the forest floor. Adam blindfolded and tied and crumpled in the backseat of The Pig. Gansey dead on the ground. Ronan. Eviscerated. Black and rot seeping from his mouth and his glazed eyes. Pain blooms on his face. A bone crushing pain that came out of nowhere. He screams.

"We're here. You're not alone." This is Gansey's voice. Distant but strong. So very Gansey. Ronan wants to plead for help but he feels another strike to his face that's even worse than the last. "Please don't hurt him. We're friends."

Ronan can feel Adam's warm familiar grip and it's the only thing keeping him from spiraling into whatever mess he's fallen into. Blue scrambles to grab Gansey's hand, telling him to speak it. The truth. The name. 

It's almost like those moments of quiet when he wakes with something from a dream. Ronan knows he's sitting in Lindenmere with Adam's hand clasped in his but Ronan is also writhing on the ground of Cabeswater. Reliving a moment he's never lived but has been lived before at some moment and now is playing through Ronan as the stage. He stretches his free hand to find Gansey.

"This isn't you," Gansey says. His voice is closer. "We all know this isn't you."

The name drops into their heads at the same time and then the memories follow in a rush. It's like a dam opened and suddenly all the gaps that never added up, the memories that bordered on too fuzzy to be real - it's all filled in. Like seeing color for the first time. Or breathing in fresh air. An entire year finally recovered.

Ronan feels a hand drifting near his and he takes it expecting Gansey's warm, calloused grip but it's clammy. Cold. Dead cold. He checks on Adam first. His hand is still warm. Alive. Shaking slightly. Beside Ronan, Adam's eyes are wide open. His smile is one of accomplishment, genuine elation. He's proud of himself and what he's done. Next, Blue is smiling too and she can't stop the tears already making their way down her face. And on the other side Gansey is laughing, full and rich and outright. His fingers are laced through with the spirit's as well.

They're all laughing together, their hands clasped in a circle. The moonlight and trees are singing above them. This is a moment that has happened before and is happening now and may never happen again. This is a moment outside of time and of time layered one over the other. A moment set aside for friends who loved and laughed and gave everything for each other. But most of all, for friends who remembered. Their laughter echoes through the trees and their hearts are so full, ready to burst.

"I missed you all," Noah says. "So much."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for hanging, yall. happy halloween <3  
> come find me over on [tumblr](https://stamatis.tumblr.com/).


End file.
